English: The Language of Shakespeare and the Edward Ware Thrillers:
I don’t know the exact rules either, but I heard from an academic who was studying the subject that the Republic of Ireland requires students to learn Gaelic, and Northern Ireland offers it as an elective. It would probably be more useful at this point to learn Latin than Gaelic even though that is also a dead language. Latin has more ties with English and the evolution of English and other major European languages such as French, Spanish, and Italian. And dead language though it be it has more classics written in that language than Gaelic does. Even major poets who supposed Irish independence such as William Butler Yeats wrote in English. Many of them knew Latin, too.
Unfortunately I agree with the two chaps who were fans of British cricket who were traveling on the train in Hitchcock’s movie The Lady Vanishes. The station attendant was calling out trains in all sorts of languages first. Finally he got to English. The two chaps quipped, “Well, why didn’t he say that to begin with?” I always support having everybody learn English. You could even make up a humorous rejoinder to the German question, “What’s wrong with the Germans?” The answer would be of course than they don’t speak better English.
English is the language of Shakespeare, not only the greatest writer of English but also of any language. It is fortunately also the language of the Edward Ware Thrillers at War Series including Key to Lawrence Special Edition, Dark Horse, Captive at the Berghof, and soon the Salisbury Plot. The hero of the series, Colonel Sir Edward Ware, was the old-fashioned British sort who would never have questioned speaking English. He thought that was what he was fighting for in the Second World War.